


Folie à Deux

by kathikon



Category: Annihilation (2018 Garland), Generation Kill, The Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff Vandermeer
Genre: Alien Flora & Fauna, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Amnesia, Annihilation is its own Warning, Biology, Canon Typical Everything, Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Domestic Fluff, Doppelganger, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Infidelity, Inspired by Annihilation (2018), M/M, Medical, Mental Disintegration, Mental Instability, Military, Monsters, Multi, Mutation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Relationships May Change, Science, Sexual Content, Sorta Post-Canon, Tags May Change, Time Shenanigans, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathikon/pseuds/kathikon
Summary: Folie à deux ('madness for two'), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucinations, are transmitted from one individual to another.currently on temporary haitus
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Nate Fick/Original Female Character
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	1. i - the lighthouse

He sat on the beach, watching the sun come up.

In the distance, the lighthouse rose a pale spiral in the blue haze of the morning sky, stark against the dark sand and beach-grass and the crystalline trees.

Brad took a deep, shuddering exhale, breath steaming clouds into the cool air.

How long had it been?

His memories seemed blurred, so little made sense now, as he sat there amongst the clumps of dune grass along the shoreline, watching the sun bleed the sky gold and orange, a kaleidoscope of colours.

His chest ached with the burn of his last cigarette, knee jerking up and down as he sat there; a lifetime and a single second all at once as he watched the still ocean, surface only interrupted by the occasional little wave that lapped at the sand half-heartedly.

Fuck, it was cold.

Brad took a drag off the cigarette and tried not to cry. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, not for himself, not anymore. 

Nothing made sense.

Not here.

He rubbed his stiff, frozen fingers together like it’d really do anything, stood up to listen to his bones creak and groan in protest as he slowly made his way down the shoreline, towards the half-caved in tower, past the rifle planted firmly into the sand, too-many sets of dog tags looped around the buttstock.

He didn’t have enough left of himself to mourn, but there was a sadness in his chest he couldn’t place, one that didn’t belong to _him_.

Poke had died first— was it the fifth day? The seventh? He wasn’t sure. There’d been something, it came in the night, came in the night and dragged him into the swamp kicking and screaming and struggling, and by the time they’d hauled the corpse out of the water, it’d been too late.

Brad had put it in his notes. Stafford had drawn it, and Doc had made neat medical notes in his clean, organised cursive.

If he closed his eyes, he was sure he could still see the image in the beam of his flashlight— Poke’s face, half gnawed down to the bone, riddled with holes, the little worms that had squirmed from his flesh and back into the filthy water, enough the make them all stumble back out and onto the shore frantically, afraid of them and whatever else might be beneath the surface.

More days passed, though he didn’t know how many. Night and day smeared together in blurs, the Edenic landscape green and lush and beautiful around them as they made their way towards the lighthouse, still uneasy with the weight of Espera’s death on their shoulders, when they’d still been themselves enough to understand it, to grieve privately.

The coyotes had come when they made it to the old headquarters of the Southern Reach, Fort Amaya, barking and snarling and howling, circling the building like sharks around a shipwreck.  
They’d prowled through open windows on too many legs, too many eyes and too many teeth and too many bullets to put them down.

Christeson had been nothing but a mangled arm, shredded scraps of uniform, a boot, and the torn open remains of his ruck after they’d killed or driven them all off, but by then it didn’t really matter, did it? He was already part of them, in some way.

They’d moved into the watchtower after that.

Brad, Not-Brad, Maybe-Brad’s notebook was filled with cursive and drawings he didn’t remember making and memories he didn’t remember having.

When he closed his eyes, he dreamed of green, a soft mouth and even teeth and wondered if they were something he’d seen, or if this place had truly and irreparably changed him, _them_ , _everyone_ , filled his head with memories from other eyes.

The cigarette had burned almost down to the quick, singeing his fingers before he dropped it into the damp sand where it sputtered and died.

He wondered if he was more himself or the others now, though he had moments, brief glimpses into the Brad he remembered being.

If he managed to get out of this place, what would it be like?

He wasn’t sure if he would be _Brad_ anymore, or if he’d be _BradandEvan, BradandEvanandMikeandTimandJohn,_ everyone and no one at all, so many people and yet not a single one, just an amalgamation of cells, reflecting, refracting, carbon and ions and nothingness swarming inside him like a hive of bees, buzzing in his bones.

(Who he is, who he will be, who he was. Does it matter?)

Nate would know, he always knew, the science made sense to him in a way it didn’t to whoever he was now, Brad or Not-Brad or Brad-and-Everyone-Else, but even as he remembered Nate and his green eyes and the gentle smile he was already forgetting, forgetting and remembering a billion other things that weren’t his, were his because he wasn’t Brad and yet he _was._

Maybe he was losing it.

Doc had lost it too, lost it when the coyote bite on his arm had swollen up filthy and angry, too fast to be an infection, when his guts had squirmed and writhed under his skin like eels and spilt out into Brad’s (or maybe Evan’s, he didn’t know anymore) hands, twisting like pine needles in a fire, black and rotten like carrion sat too-long on the side of the road.

Like maggots.

Brad dug through his backpack, pulling out the five notebooks in a frantic rush, desperate.

He was pretty sure Mike might’ve had one, but if he did, it had been lost to the woods.

Same as the rest of him was.

Maybe Poke had been lucky, dying before he’d mutated like the rest of them had, become part of _whatever_ Brad or Not-Brad was now, a twisted amalgam of the men who had stepped across the border and into the Shimmer an unknowable, innumerable number of days ago.

Maybe he’d been lucky, and Brad hadn’t because he’d had to listen to it for days now— the _thing_ that had followed him and Evan after the bear, that sickly, twisted creature, had dragged Mike off, too fast and too big to go down even after they poured a magazine of lead into it.

It spoke with Wynn’s voice and it _screamed_ at night when Brad and Evan climbed into trees and prayed to anything that would listen that it couldn’t follow them.

Maybe that’s why Evan had blown his brains out one, two, however many days ago, the morning after the thing stood up on its hind legs, searching, _reaching,_ close enough that they could look it in the eyes, and it begged them to help him in Mike’s voice.

After long enough, after Evan had started crying and trying to ask the Not-Bear, Not-Mike questions, a shot had rang out in the darkness, and everything had been quiet again.

Brad was no longer sure if he’d pulled the trigger or if Evan had.

He needed to know, know who was who and what had happened. He needed to know how long it had been since he was just Brad and not Maybe-Brad or Not-Brad.

The journals made his head ache.

(His head? Was it really his anymore? It felt wrong to say that. _Their_ head. That felt wrong too.)

He could recognise where _they_ began and ended, meshing together in their journals, when they became Not-Brad, where Evan’s looping scrawl bled into Christeson’s chicken-scratch and Brad’s neat printing and back again when he became Not-Tim and Not-Mike, but at the same time circled back all the way around into Evan’s handwriting again.

The wind picked up, waves blooming white foam as they crashed against the shoreline and Maybe-Brad remembered another ocean a million lifetimes ago, green eyes and soft hands and softer lips and cold water surrounding them, like a second skin, a loving embrace.

He (whoever he was) was pretty sure the memory was Brad’s, Brad and Nate, but not _BradandNate_ because he was Brad (and everyone else. Or maybe it was the other way around now, Everyone-Else-and-Brad) and Nate was somewhere, somewhere beyond the Shimmer, beyond everything and out of Maybe-Brad’s reach, somewhere along a different shore, a different sea. 

The thought made his head spin.

The pages of the notebooks, soft from the humid sea air, crumpled under his hands as he tore them out, and with the roll of duct tape he’d salvaged from someone’s pack, he began reconstructing everything along the walls of the lighthouse, from the beginning when they’d been Brad Colbert and Evan Stafford and Tim Bryan and Mike Wynn and John Christeson and Poke Espera, before— before everything, everything and nothing and they’d all blurred together. 

It was hard, when their journals all stopped looking different, all a mess of crumbled pages and smeared ink and half-finished drawings, shaky hands and sentences that had the same style and different penmanship or the same penmanship but phrased in a way Christeson would never have written, but exactly what Doc used to write like until none of it made sense until _all_ of it made sense.

This was busywork, and he knew that, knew that it didn’t matter because he wasn’t walking out of this place alive. Maybe something was something not quite Brad and not quite Not-Brad either.

The papers rustled as he spread them across the walls, tracing a line through the narrative even as the line between them blurred until it was just Brad and Evan, _BradandEvan_ , even though sometimes it was _Mike_ and sometimes it was _MikeandJohn_ , or _TimandEvanandMikeandJohn_ , even after they’d all died.

By the time he’d finished, maybe everything would make sense again, and he’d be just _Brad_ again, and he could figure out how to go home, be Brad and Nate just like before and forget how to be Everything-but-Just-Brad.

The other him, who’d sat and watched quietly as he created the sprawling web of words and minds and thoughts across the walls of the lighthouse, who’d come from the lights under the earth, pulsing like a heartbeat and a drum and silent at the same time, reaching and pushing and pulling, had agreed.

Brad and _other_ Brad, but not _BradandBrad_ , because they were already both Brad and not quite _Brad_ but everyone else at the same time and not at all, just the two of them, whoever they were, standing in the lighthouse, perfect mirrors of each other.

Two halves of the same whole or were they two separate wholes, two unique beings?

One, two, five, seven, what did it matter anymore— there was just the two of them left anyways now.

Everything and nothing at once.

He was fine with that, fine with the other version of himself being here. It made sense, even if nothing else did, even if he wasn’t sure who he was anymore.

His sidearm was heavy in his hand when he finally pulled it out of the holster on his thigh and sat it on the concrete between him and not-him (or maybe they were both him). 

There was one bullet left.

The only question that remained now was who was going to pull the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any comments or feedback is appreciated!  
> there will be weekly updates


	2. ii - return

The buzz of the fluorescent lights hurt his head, skull pounding in time with his heartbeat, slow and steady and _normal_.

A glass of water sat next to him, and despite how much his throat ached, he couldn’t bring himself to reach out for it, hands folded in his lap.

Nate could see the scientists— blue-clad and watching, _waiting_ beyond the glass, beyond the prison of his own making.

This wasn’t his fault, it couldn’t have been, couldn’t be.

More scientists stood before him, and Nate found he couldn’t see their faces through the hazmat suits they wore.

They needed protection— from what? From him?

“What did you eat?” the first one asked, voice muffled and crackling through the transmitter on the suit. “You had rations for two weeks— you were inside for nearly four _months_.”

Nate couldn’t bring himself to look at them, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t remember either. “I don’t remember eating.” The walls and ceiling were different colours. Beige, off white— just a few shades of difference, but enough that it made something deep in Nate’s skin itch, though he didn’t move to claw at it.

If he started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

“How long did you think you were in there?”  
“I don’t know— days? A week, two? Maybe a little more. I don’t _know_.”

The hazmat suit showed no compassion, no mercy as it continued the questions.

 _This is an interrogation,_ Nate thought bitterly.

“What happened to James Trombley?”

The name brought back an ugly surge of memories, confusion and fear and need and want and hunger, enough that Nate’s throat clenched up, knuckles going white where they clutched at the soft fabric of his pants.  
“I—” his voice faltered. What _had_ happened? He remembered the sea, stormy and grey, the lighthouse, and something deep in his chest twisted, like a snake coiled around its prey, crushing. “I don’t know.”

“What about the others? Hasser? Person?”  
Nate stared at his lap, his bruised knuckles and the edge of the tattoo that now decorated the inside of his forearm, a serpent, twisted around itself, devouring.

_Ouroboros._

Same as they all had been inside the Shimmer.

“Dead,” he breathed, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling for a moment. “They’re all dead, Patterson too. I don’t _know_ , I really don’t—” Nate swallowed back something in his throat— not tears— hands shaking as he tried to settle his nerves all back into a neat package he could hide away somewhere deep inside of himself.

Bury it like he’d buried the dead, or what remained of them at least.

The scientist shifted uneasily, though they never turned away from him. “Then what _do_ you know?”

Nate stared, silent, listening to the buzz of the fluorescent lights and his own heartbeat as he breathed, in and out, slow and steady, and he remembered the writhing mass of shapes and colours that he couldn’t describe, and he picked up his glass of water and took a drink.

**Five Months Earlier** ****

“This is a cell— like all cells, it is born from an existing cell, and by extension, all cells were ultimately born from one cell— a single organism, alone on Earth, perhaps alone in the universe.” Nate sat along the wide windows as the video played, silent along the screen at the front of the classroom. “Then, some time about four billion years ago, one became two, two became four— then eight, sixteen, thirty-two.”  
He smiled a little, tapping his pencil along his thigh gently.  
“The rhythm of the diving pair becomes the structure of every microbe, blade of grass, sea creature, land creature, and even, humans. The structure of everything that lives— and everything that dies. As students of biology and medicine, the doctors and scientists of tomorrow, this is where you come in.” It felt odd, saying that, when he was hardly older than some of his students, medical and graduate students barely four or five years younger than he was.

“The cell we’re looking at comes from a tumour, taken from the cervix of a female patient in her early thirties.” The display kept dividing, a grey-white mass that swelled and expanded as it continued to create more of itself. “Over the course of the next term, we will be closely examining cancer cells in vitro and discussing autophagic activity.”

An hour later and Nate was heading down the steps of the Life Sciences building, towards the parking lot, when one of his undergraduate students caught up with him.  
“Dr. Fick?” she asked, as he slowed down his pace to allow her to catch up.

Nate smiled a little to himself, the girl was smart, smarter than some of his graduate students, even though she was half a decade younger than some. “Yes Katie? How can I help you?”

“I finished that John Sulston paper last night, the one you recommended.”

Nate paused, adjusting his messenger back on his shoulder. “The one about Nematodes? That wasn’t required reading Katie, I was just using him as an example due to his work in forwarding our understanding of the human genome and the life cycle of cells.”

The girl shrugged before forging onwards. “I still feel like I’m not working hard enough— everyone is so far ahead of me.”

“Katie, they’re graduate students. They’re going to be ahead of you, but your grades are still perfectly fine.” He offered her a smile he hoped would be comforting. “You have nothing to worry about.” Nate checked his watch, wincing a little bit at the number there. “I— I need to go home, but you know my office hours if you need to talk to me tomorrow, or you can e-mail me if that’s better for you.”

“Oh—” she looked a little crestfallen, before she perked back up. “Of course! I’ll see you later then, Professor.”

As he made his way down the path, another voice broke into his thoughts.  
“Nate!” He heard the tap-tap of high heels on the ground behind him, turning to face the new figure.

  
“Dr. Farias,” he offered amiably, though he didn’t slow down this time. “What can I do for you?” She kept pace with him despite the disparity in their heights, one hand brushing over his arm.

“I’ve been looking for you at lunch, but you never seem to be around.” She sounded almost disappointed, and the guilt that washed over Nate was sickening, made his head spin as he thought about her, thought about _Brad_ and everything else.

“I’ve been catching up on some writing,” he offered, a pitiful excuse, and they both knew it.  
Her hand circled around his wrist loosely.

“All work and no play, it’s not healthy, Nate.” He stopped walking, wanted to scream and pull at his hair at the way she said things. _What are you trying to_ say _? Just say it, don’t keep beating around the bush._ But he didn’t do any of those things, just smiled politely at the other professor. “I wanted to ask. Do you have plans for this Saturday?” The guilt felt like a wave, pushing him down deeper and deeper. “Andrew and I were going to have a few people over, maybe a barbeque or some sort of party while the weather holds.”

Nate took a deep breath and hoped she didn’t notice how his body language had gone nervous and tense. “Actually, I’m really sorry Angela. I do have plans.”

“I think it could be a lot of fun,” she offered, voice low and soft as silk.

“I wish I could but I’m going to paint our bedr— the bedroom.”

“It’s been over a year, Nate.”

Over a year since Brad had gone on that mission, since Brad left and everything had fallen apart, a year since he’d last seen his husband, last heard from him, long enough that the little ember of hope had long since smouldered out.  
“You’re allowed to come to a barbecue. It is not a betrayal or an insult to his memory.”

_And what about your husband then? What about Andrew? Your kids? Is this a betrayal to them?_

Angela’s hand cupped his arm, gentle and yet firm, and Nate’s hand tightened on the travel mug in his hands, full of lukewarm coffee with not enough sugar, not enough cream.

“I’m gonna paint the bedroom,” he repeated, and that was the end of it.

And yet here they were, Angela’s body flexing above him, slow like honey as she twisted, and all Nate could do was squeeze his eyes shut and his hands around her waist, breathless as they moved together, bare skin and a need for something neither of them could have.

She was soft in a way Nate couldn’t stand, so unlike the planes of hard muscle that made up Brad, made up everything he’d loved and wanted for years now, and when she ducked down to kiss him afterwards, he turned away, shame colouring his cheeks.

“This was a mistake,” he said softly, like he did every time, when she leaned half out his windowsill, lighting herself a cigarette, glowing in the light of the California sunset that made her dark hair look like liquid bronze, like a river in the night. 

“We can’t keep doing this.” Like he said every time for the past two years, the affair he couldn’t shake when Brad ran off to some country he couldn’t tell Nate about, as much as he’d grown to despise the woman.

“Why?” She tapped her ashes out, probably into the reaching branches of the redbud that grew in the yard, its pink-flowered branches nearly brushing the house in the windy coastal nights.  
The balmy air blew through the open window, carrying with it the scent of the ocean and Angela’s cigarette. “You haven’t seen him in months. Even when you did, you two spent more time away than together. You can’t talk to him about work, he won’t talk to you about his.” Nate wished he couldn’t hear the unforgiving edge in her tone. She was _right_ of course, but that didn’t make it any easier. “There is a clear physical and intellectual attraction between the two of us, Nate. Have I covered the bases?”

“You forgot to mention your husband,” Nate snarled, though it came out more exhausted than angry, and he just laid there, bone-tired, cock soft against his hip and cum still smeared across his lower belly. “And your kids.” He didn’t let his bitterness slip away when he curled his arms behind his head, watching her in the half-light, half-darkness of his bedroom ( _the bedroom he and Brad once shared),_ the warm glow of the streetlamp reflecting across her bare chest.

“I love my husband, the kids— they’re blameless in this. Come on, Nate. What are you so scared of?”

“You should go.” Nate sat up, for real this time, pulling on his boxers and wiping halfheartedly at his stomach with the bedsheets that lay crumpled across his leg.

“No, Nate, I…” she began.

“Angela.” He stood all the way now, the hardwood cool under his bare feet. “I’m not interested in talking. Or in anything you have to say. Just get dressed and get out.”  
She stared at him for a heartbeat, before she tempered her emotions into something cold, something hard.

“You know, Nate? It’s not me you hate.”

She gathered her things, tucking her blouse back into her slacks, tying her dark hair into a loose ponytail.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

“It’s yourself.”

 _And that’s where you’re wrong, Angela. I hate you too._  
Even long after he heard the click of his front door, the purr of her car’s engine as it pulled out of the driveway and down the road, he stood there in the darkening house, staring at the doorway as if he expected someone to come through it.

And like always, nobody did.

When Saturday rolled around, Nate sat on the couch and clutched the photo albums from their wedding, from their honeymoon, from everything they’d ever had photos of.

His hands were shaking and it took all of his self-control to not think about everything he still missed, he still needed and wanted and didn’t have anymore; Brad’s hands inching up the inside of his ribs in the morning, tickling— the way he laughed, chest heaving, corners of his eyes crinkling up when he smiled, real and warm and all Nate’s. The way they were made for each other, ever since the first time they met all those years ago when Nate was hardly twenty-two and in the middle of Afghanistan, as they made their way across Iraq in tin-plated Humvees, and the only thing they’d had faith in was each other, how well they fit together, puzzle pieces, mouths and bodies and hands and lives like they’d always been together.

He didn’t think about those things and certainly didn’t think about the ring that sat heavily on the bedside table, the one that he couldn’t bear to wear anymore.

And he certainly didn’t cry.

So instead, he spread a plastic sheet over the bed they used to share, rolled his sleeves up, and started painting.  
At some point it went from the late morning to the middle of the afternoon, sunshine pouring in through the filmy curtains golden and warm, streams of dust motes moving through them lazily. Slowly, the walls changed from dark grey-green to a pale blue, like the sky in the morning before the sun had risen fully, like the seas between them, pushing and pulling them apart. In the background, one of Brad’s old Air Supply records played softly, painfully familiar.

Nate heard something creak and he stopped the music and turned towards the door, open to the hallway, the staircase.

“Hello?” his voice rang out in the empty silence until someone stepped through the doorway, and the paint roller fell from Nate’s hands, forgotten, even as paint splattered across his bare feet and the wooden floor.  
“Oh my god,” he breathed, breath catching in his throat as he stepped forward. “Oh my _god_.” Then he was in Brad’s arms, wrapped around him, sobbing into the crook of Brad’s neck like he was a child, clinging to the man he never thought he’d see again.

Brad’s hands were warm, gentle as they settled on his waist, just above the hip bones that jutted out more than they had last year, and Nate just cried and hoped this wasn’t a dream.  
“I thought you were gone,” he whispered, voice cracking as he clung to the taller man, pushed up onto his tiptoes to loop his arms over Brad’s shoulders, around his neck. He drew back a moment, cupping the face he still saw in his dreams, saw in his waking nightmare, and kissed him, gentle and desperate and sticky with tears. “I thought you were gone.”

Brad stayed silent, but kissed him back, hesitant and soft in a way that made Nate’s heart ache. “Brad.” His voice broke again and a fresh wave of tears rolled out, ugly and hot and Brad just let him cry, holding Nate to his chest as he breathed him in.

The cup of water sat untouched between them, Brad’s outstretched fingertips just shy of the glass, hand spread open across the table runner as though he didn't understand what to do with himself.

He wouldn’t meet Nate’s eyes.

Somewhere in the background, the dishwasher was running, soft and quiet in the early evening silence, just over the hum of the fridge.

“Nobody knew anything about your unit,” Nate said softly, hesitantly, reaching out to touch Brad’s hand. The blond stopped jiggling his knee. “I contacted everyone I could— everyone else knew just as little as I did.” Brad was silent, still as a statue, still staring at the whorls in the wooden surface of the table— their table. 

Nate took a deep breath, looking up as he drew back into his own space, bracing his weight against the countertop and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Was it covert?”  
“Mmh… maybe.” Brad’s voice was hoarse, the kitchen lights throwing deep shadows across his thin face.

He almost laughed at that, astounded and furious and confused all at once. “What’s that supposed to mean, Brad? ‘Maybe’?”

Brad stopped, looked up at him for the first time and Nate couldn’t help but notice his eyes were _wrong._ Like they were someone else’s. “Okay, yeah. It was covert, yeah. I think so.”  
“Pakistan again?” Nate’s voice broke a little. What was he hiding? They’d promised no more secrets between them, and yet here they were, Brad and Nate. “Syria?”

He shrugged helplessly, shaking his head ever so slightly. 

“I— I don’t know where it was, or what it was—”  
“How is that possible?” Nate’s voice came out bitter, same as the laugh that barked out of his chest, throwing his hands in the air. “Was— was it warm? Did it snow? Did the people there speak Portuguese, or Swahili, or Pashto?” He let his hands fall, rubbing at his temples and they just looked at each other for a heartbeat.  
“How long have you been back?” Accusing, demanding an answer for this, for _everything_ , for putting him through this.

“I… don’t know.”  
“How— how can you not know?” Nate’s voice broke, and Brad turned away, staring at the table again. “How’d you get back? What base did you fly into? Brad, _please_. Tell me something.” _Anything._

Brad just shrugged half-heartedly. “I don’t know.”  
“What about the rest of your unit? Did they come back with you?” The silence between them dragged on, endless and aching and too much.

The cup dripped onto the tablecloth.

“You have to be able to tell me something,” he pleaded. “You vanished off the face of the Earth for fifteen months. I thought you were _dead_ , Brad. I deserve an explanation— I deserve a better explanation than ‘I don’t know’.”

Brad hunched his shoulders in, defensive. “Does it matter?” his voice had lost its odd dream-like quality, colder than the most bitter winter. Nate stared at him, taken aback. “I’m here now, aren’t I?” And those eyes, oh those _eyes_ that weren’t his turned slowly up, burning into Nate’s very core.

He pulled out the chair opposite from Brad and sat down, feeling the wood dig into his spine. Their hands met over the glass as Nate traced gentle fingers over the skin of Brad’s knuckles, old scars and bones just beneath delicate flesh. “How did you get home?”

“I was outside.” Brad turned his head towards the stairwell, imposing in the shadows and half-light.

“Outside the house?”  
“No,” he murmured, shaking his head. “No, I was outside the room—” Nate drew his mouth into a frown, eyebrows furrowing together, “—the room with the bed. The door was open.”  
“And I saw you. I _recognised_ you. Your face.”

Nate drew his hands away slowly, trying to connect the dots here, and Brad’s fingers closed around the glass of water, lifting it to his mouth. In the silence it felt nearly deafening, the sound of him swallowing, the glass coming back down to meet the table with a soft noise, muffled by the runner. 

“I don’t feel very well,” Brad murmured, and the dream fell apart again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes on timeline shenanigans in future chapters (and this one technically)  
> unless noted, everything is in the "five months prior" timeline, so that will be our "present" in a way
> 
> as always, thank you for reading!  
> chapter lengths will vary wildly, and slowly diverge from the movie and books as we continue :V


	3. iii - southern reach

He woke up in bed.

For a moment he wondered, eyes still closed, if it had all been a nightmare, Brad in his arms again, within reach.   
Then he opened his eyes and it all came crashing down.

Nate’s head ached, violent and vicious and a moment later, he was staggering out of bed, throwing up in the small metal toilet in the corner of the room he was in.   
Where was he? As he wobbled back to his feet, rinsing his mouth out with cold, metallic sink water, his attention flickered up to the mirror, startled. He hardly recognised himself, skin pale, dark circles under his eyes— had he always been like that? 

“I reckon you aren’t feeling too good.”   
Nate turned, just enough to greet the man standing in the doorway, soft eyes and an unassuming face. “It’s a side effect from the sedative you were given. Come on, let’s sit you down.”

Memories came back in bits and pieces, blood foaming on Brad’s lips, sirens.

_ Brad, I need you to stay with me,  _ please _. Look at me, I love you, I love you, please— _

There’d been a paramedic, a radio,  _ Male, Thirty-Four, haemorrhage, in seizure,  _ Brad’s body jerking like a puppet dragged around by the strings.

“Who are you,” Nate rasped, voice hoarse as he sat down in the little plastic chair next to the bed he’d woken up on. The man offered him a water bottle, smiling from beneath the moustache that graced his upper lip. He hesitated for a moment, before taking the bottle, hands shaking as he unscrewed the cap.   
“My name is Dr. Patterson.” The man turned, looking at the glass wall that faced them. “I’m a psychologist.”

Nate swallowed his mouthful of water, breath coming out in low pants. “Why am I talking to a psychologist?” He looked around himself at the bare-bones room, the simple bed and half-assed bathroom and little desk all crammed together. “Am I in a psychiatric hospital?”

The psychologist leaned back against the desk, face carefully neutral.   
“No.”

“Then what? Where am I?” A heartbeat. “Where’s my husband?”

“You served in the Marine Corps for five years.” Dr. Patterson ignored his questions, forging onwards regardless.   
Nate’s hands faltered on the water bottle. “I’m— I’m a professor. At UC San Diego. And I want to know what the  _ fuck _ I’m doing here.”

“Your research area is the evolution and life cycle of the cell. Fascinating stuff— I read your doctoral thesis, about the slime molds,  _ Physarum polycephalum _ . Fascinating stuff, even for a layman like me.”

“I’d hardly call you a layman,  _ Doctor,” _ Nate spat, baring his teeth. “Where is my husband?”

“Yeah, actually I’d like to talk about him. Gunnery Sergeant Colbert. When did he arrive back home?”

Nate stared for a brief moment, transfixed by the sound of Dr. Patterson’s shoes on the tiled floor, the low hum of the lights above them. “I want to see a lawyer.”

“You’re not going to be seeing a lawyer, Nathaniel.” Nate let his head drop, trying to soothe his pounding heart, the headache building up behind his temples. “Did he explain how he got back?”   
“... No.”   
“Did he contact you at any point while he was away?”

The tiles on the ground had become particularly fascinating, even as Nate struggled to keep the tears from coming back, frustration and helplessness all shoved back down into an ugly mess, trying to temper it all into a Nate that had been gone for nearly six years now, Lieutenant Fick,  _ Captain _ Fick, not Professor Fick, who cried at seemingly everything these days. “No,” he whispered, voice breaking slightly, “He didn’t.”

“What did he tell you about his mission when he returned?”

“Nothing.”

“Before he left? Did he ever mention where he was going, what he was doing?”

“I never asked, he never told.”

“And yet you made regular requests for information from his chain of command, up until six months ago. Then you stopped.” Patterson paced back and forth, slow and steady. “Why? Thought he was dead? Time to move on? It’s not easy to move on.”

A single tear hit the tile between Nate’s feet, guilt rising up hot and sick in his throat like bile.

“I didn’t.” He turned his head, eyes fixed on the armed guard beyond the windows, an M4 in his arms. “I’m done answering questions. It’s your turn.”

The psychologist shrugged nonchalantly. “Your husband’s here.” Nate surged to his feet, the water bottle crinkling between his fingers. “Sit back down, Dr. Fick. He’s extremely ill— multiple organ failure, massive internal bleeding, grand mal seizures.”

The cool plastic of the chain dug into the backs of Nate’s thighs. “He must have been exposed to some sort of radiation, some kind of virus—” he shook his head a little, fingers clenching and unclenching, a nervous habit he’d never grown out of, “— you need to tell me where he was, what he was doing.”

Dr. Patterson looked uninterested, even when Nate’s voice had gone desperate, far removed from any pride he may have once had.

“ _ Please.” _

The thing was beautiful.

In the light of the late morning, it swirled and pulsed with a life of its own, brilliant and swirling like an oil slick, like Nate’s vague childhood memories of running across his parent’s lawn, shimmering bubbles trailing in his wake.

It was a kaleidoscope of colours, innumerable, indescribable in the way it transfixed him.   
“What is it?” he breathed, unable to look away, hands gripping the railing.

“An extraterrestrial event, a higher dimension— a higher power? There are many theories.” Patterson shrugged a little, standing just to the side of Nate. “Few facts.”

When they stepped back inside, there was a chill that Nate hadn’t noticed before, goosebumps prickling up his spine.   
“It started around three years ago. Saint Mark’s Wildlife Refuge—” Nate froze up, staring at Patterson with surprise.  _ Florida? _ “— reported that the lighthouse was surrounded by something they called a ‘shimmer’. One of the wardens, uh, went in. To investigate— never returned.”

_ The Shimmer. _

“The event was made classified, of course.” Patterson leaned back in his chair, and Nate just stared, unable to formulate words that sounded right,  _ felt _ right. “Since then, there’s been attempts to approach by land, by sea, sent in drones, animals, teams of people— nothing comes back.”  
“And now the boundary is getting bigger. Expanding. So far, it’s been eating into barely-populated swampland, which we had evacuated under the pretext of a chemical spill, but… how much longer will that last? In a few more months, standing outside, you will be able to touch it. And then we’ll be talking cities, states, and eventually, maybe even countries. Continents.”

“You said nothing comes back.” Nate turned to look at the psychologist, brows furrowed ever so slightly. “But something  _ did. _ ”  _ Brad did. _

Patterson nodded minutely, so small that Nate nearly missed the movement. “Yes.” A heartbeat passed again, the silence lingering between them. “He’s dying, Nate.”

“I know.” He hated how helpless he sounded, how helpless he  _ felt _ , sitting in this office while Brad’s organs shut down in some sterile room of the facility. If he closed his eyes, he could see it, the machines and tubes and wires and everything. “I know.”

A fleeting look of sympathy flashed in the older man’s eyes and he smiled sadly at Nate. “We need to come to an agreement about what to do with you, Dr. Fick.”

“You’re not going to let me go home.” When he said it, it felt like a statement more than a question.   
“Is that really what you want? To go home?”

The reality of the statement startled Nate, and for a moment, everything made sense. “No.” He looked over his shoulder, across the marsh and the Shimmer in the distance, brilliant in the sunshine, and he knew that if he turned around now, went back to California, he’d be burying Brad alone and regretting this moment, so he just nodded along like a bobblehead. “I want to stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> early update! as a treat :)


	4. iv - skeletons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> readers of angst fic can have a little fluff. as a treat <3

**Sixteen Months Earlier**

“Brad.” Nate laid in a bed, soft and warm in the air that billowed in past the window screen and the curtains. “You’re not talking to me.” He rolled to sit up, straddling Brad’s hips and revelling in the lazy smile that spread itself across his husband’s face, the gentle hands that slid up his thighs to grip at the divot of his hips.

“Sorry, zoned out,” Brad murmured, straining up to catch Nate’s mouth with his own for a brief moment before he flopped back into the bed, smiling in a way that made the guilt in Nate’s stomach twist into a tight knot.

“Thinking about the next mission?”

Brad hummed deep in his chest, one hand reaching up to cup Nate’s face, fingers curling around his jaw. Nate just let him, felt Brad’s calloused thumb brushed over the mole under his eye. “No. Just looking at the moon. It’s so weird seeing it in the daylight.” 

Nate turned his head slightly to kiss the palm of Brad’s hand, eyes sliding shut. “Like God made a mistake, left the hall lights on.”

“Isn’t  _ not _ making mistakes kind of the key to the whole ‘being God’ thing?” Brad mused, sitting up just enough to brace his weight on his elbows.

“I’m pretty sure He does.” Nate ducked down, to kiss Brad for real this time, rocked his weight forward enough to make Brad’s breath catch in his throat, eyelids fluttering for a brief second. “You take a cell and circumvent the Hayflick limit, you could prevent senescence.”

Brad snorted, shaking his head. “I was about to make that exact point Nathaniel,” he drawled, slow and steady and teasing until Nate grinned and wrapped his hand around Brad, rolling their hips together again slowly as he dragged his thumb over the head of his cock.

“It means the cell… doesn’t grow old. It becomes immortal, just keeps dividing, doesn’t die.” Brad slumped back into the pillows, watching Nate from under pale eyelashes.

“I’m never going to be able to listen to you talk about work again,” he breathed, hips twitching minutely up into Nate’s hands. “You’ve Pavlov’d me, you sick fuck.” But there was no heat in his tone, just an appreciative groan, tongue swiping obscenely over his lower lip.

“Maybe that was the goal.” Nate just smiled, twisting his wrist on the upstroke, too dry and too rough, but Brad shuddered under his hands anyways, head tipped back to expose the pale stretch of his throat as his chest expanded and contracted with shaking breaths. “We see aging as a natural process— but it’s really just a fault in our genes. If we could just  _ adjust _ the genetic code, ever so slightly, we might crack the secret to immortality. We could live  _ forever _ .”

Brad wiggled his hips slightly so he could thrust up into Nate’s loose fist, face already flushed along his cheeks as he grinned up at his husband. “I get really turned on when you patronise me.” Nate raised his eyebrows at that, grinning despite the way his eyes kept wandering to the flex of Brad’s stomach as he tried to move against the weight pinning him to the bed. “It’s really hot.”

“Without it, I could keep looking like this forever too,” he murmured, shifting his weight onto his knees.

The blond laughed for real this time, warm and bright in the late summer afternoon. “Oh— well,  _ that _ could definitely constitute a mistake,” Brad said earnestly, and Nate shook his head, trying not to smile.

“I love you too Colbert,” he promised, even as he sank himself down onto Brad, and the world contracted until it was just the two of them, two halves of one whole, fit together like they’d always meant to be that way.

  
  
Afterwards, hips and thighs aching, he turned, letting Brad mouth at his collarbone, lazy touches and soft kisses.   
“You didn’t tell me where you’re headed this time,” Nate said softly, scratching his fingers against Brad’s scalp. “I know there’s something strange about this mission.”

“Why do you say that?” Brad looked up, resting his chin over Nate’s heart.

“The silence is louder than usual.” Nate shifted his hips, one leg tossed over Brad’s thigh. “Kinda angling for a clue here.” 

Brad tugged him in so they were facing each other properly, chests nearly flush. “We’ll be under the same hemisphere,” he murmured against Nate’s lips, pausing to smile and kiss him softly. “If you step outside and look up— we’ll be looking at the same stars.”

“Holy fucking shit.” Nate pulled away and pushed himself up onto one elbow, grinning wildly.

“What?”

“Are you kidding?” he shook his head, bemused. “Is that what you think I do when you’re away?”

“What?” Brad repeated, even as he stared right back, sleepy eyes as his hands gripped Nate’s biceps, not pulling, just there.

Just holding.

“Do you think I sit out in the garden, pining, looking up at the sky?”  
A moment passed, and then they were laughing into each other's space, each other’s air.

“Shut up,” Brad griped playfully, pushing Nate away by the face gently when he tried to duck in for a kiss.

“Oh to think... my beloved Bradley—”

“Okaaaay, that’s enough,” he grumbled, though his tone was still fond.

“— is looking at the selfsame moon.” Nate flopped his weight back down across Brad, punching the air out of his lungs with a huff. “Oh my distant celestial friend!” he crowed, leaning in to nip at the shell of Brad’s ear, before they were wrestling, the bed frame protesting under their weight as they laughed like little kids again. “Please care for my brave soldier!”

Brad pinched him hard in the side and pinned him back against the mattress, their chests heaving out of sync despite matching smiles. “Soldier! I am a Marine! You are being very disrespectful, Dr. Fick,” Brad fake-fumed at him, eyes twinkling. He ducked down to kiss his cheek, lit up golden by the warm sunlight filtering in through their skylight, expression fond and adoring and _open._ “Not only to your former brothers in arms of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, but also to the esteemed President.”

“You forgot the flag,” Nate said finally, before he was giggling, Brad’s massive hand circling around his wrists, bruise-tight. “I’m clearly disrespecting that as well.”

“Oh, I’m getting the motherfuckin’ flag,” Brad growled, sending shivers up Nate’s spine at how it rumbled in his chest, the hungry look on his face despite the smile.

“My hero!” he cried, gently mocking before Brad’s free hand was sinking fingerprint bruises into the meat of his hip.

“Oh, fuck you.”

Nate just made a pleased noise and let his thighs fall open for Brad to kneel between them before he smiled innocently up at the other man. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates are going to slow down soon as we catch up to where i am in writing the fic! oops  
> next week, there may or not be a chapter as i work on this and other projects.  
> like always, thank you for reading, i hope you enjoy!!!!


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